


Corps a Corps

by CelticAurora



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Chronic Illness, Fencing, Foster Care, Gay Disaster Shiro (Voltron), Gay Keith (Voltron), Gay Shiro (Voltron), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It Gets Horny Later, Keith (Voltron) Has Abandonment Issues, M/M, Offscreen character death, Old Friends, Past Character Death, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Shiro Has a Chronic Illness, eventual NSFW
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-07 19:58:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19216459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticAurora/pseuds/CelticAurora
Summary: Growing up, Keith Kogane and Takashi “Shiro” Shirogane were inseparable - at least, until a childhood tragedy forced them apart. After the death of Keith’s father, he’s placed into foster care, and Shiro loses track of his best friend.Time goes on. Shiro grows up. Experiences love and unspeakable loss. And through it all, finds his niche in fencing.Now twenty-three and a senior at Altea College, he’s become co-captain of the Lion Guard Fencing Team. And on a normal Tuesday afternoon, a ghost from his past walks into the gym and asks to join the fencing club.Shiro can hardly believe his eyes when he comes face-to-face with his once-best friend, lost to the system so long ago. But so much has changed between the two of them over the years. Can they pick up where they left off? And why does Shiro always get butterflies in his stomach whenever he thinks about Keith?





	1. Attack From the Left

**Author's Note:**

> My piece for the 2018 Sheith Prompt Bang. The mods were lovely people and agreed to let me post it in installments, because, um...it's a lot more involved than I originally intended it to be. 
> 
> Once I have the art available, I will include it in the piece!
> 
> Have the College Fencing AU that no one ever wanted (but I really needed).

_ Corps à corps (“body to body”) -  _ _ The action of two fencers coming into physical contact with one another with any portion of their bodies or hilts. This is illegal in foil and sabre bouts, and is cause for the Referee (Director) to halt the fencing action. In épée, it does not violate the spirit of the game, but contact may not be accompanied with any brutality or forcefulness (intentional or not.) _

* * *

“Advance!”

The stomp of shoes against the scuffed wooden gym floor was not as synchronous as Shiro would have liked, but it was definitely an improvement. And just in time, too - they were three weeks into practices for the year, and he was beginning to wonder if he’d ever get through footwork drills without half a dozen newbies falling over their shoes or somehow ending up two and a half steps ahead or behind. 

He took another step back. “Advance!”

_ Stomp! _

This time, a step forward. “Retreat!”

No stomp this time, but instead a prolonged  _ squeeeak _ as rubber soles dragged over the floor.

“Advance!”

_ Stomp! _

“Retreat!”

_ Squeeeeak. _

“Advance! Advance! Retreat!”

_ Stomp! Stomp! Squeeeeak. _ It vaguely reminded Shiro of a Queen song. He grinned, then took one large step back.

“Lunge!”

The stomp that followed was even louder this time, as fencers planted their leading feet. Shiro looked up and down the three lines of fencers - they were still early enough into the year that people hadn’t dropped out or gotten too busy to come to Tuesday practices - studying their forms. They had the basic idea of a lunge down, but there were still a lot of mostly straight legs as he looked up and down the lines, even from some of the older, more experienced fencers.

“I see some very shallow lunges. Come on, I think we can lunge a little deeper.”

There was a shift as the fencers bent their legs a little more, and he nodded in approval.

“There we go! Now...advance!”

_ Stomp! _

“Retreat!”

_ Squeeeeak. _

“Advance! Advance! Lunge!”

_ Stomp! Stomp! STOMP! _

His back hit the mats lining the wall as he took one large step backwards. “Aaaaaaand redouble, nice deep lunge!”

_ STOMP! _

“Good! And hold it!”

There was a chorus of groans, but Shiro only laughed.

“You’ll thank me for it later, now hold those lunges.”

He stood up straight, moving to his far right and starting down the line of fencers to check their stances. Some were half a foot ahead of others, or behind, but for the most part, they were all in three solid lines. He spotted a few of the newbies in the second row giving him annoyed looks as he took his time inspecting their lunges, but it was worth the annoyed looks to make sure the new fencers actually had good form. They would need that come time for tournaments.

“How’s everyone’s week going?” he asked casually.

There was a general chorus of “all right” and “can’t complain” from the group, but from the second row, someone distinctly grumbled “is he for fucking real right now?”

Shiro sighed. The voice of discontent belonged to Hira, a freshman with a short-cropped pink mane and a holier-than-thou attitude. She and two other new fencers had come from a private high school, one where fencing was offered as an actual sport option, with competition and everything, and she didn’t seem to take kindly to being lumped in with all the other freshmans and transfers, the majority of whom had never actually picked up a blade before.

There were some like that every year - Shiro had seen it during his tenure as captain of the Garrison University Fencing Team, before he’d transferred to Altea at the beginning of last year. That didn’t stop her comment from taking the smile off of Shiro’s face, though.

“Oh, he is.”

Hira’s eyes went wide, the color draining from her face, making her hair seem even more vibrant. She’d been so fixated on complaining about how Shiro was running drills, she failed to remember who was watching them.

Allura Lyon had been captain of the Lion Guard Fencing Team when Shiro had transferred in, and somehow managed to look like a runway model even after a day on the strip, with her big blue eyes and her long white hair. Her looks, as well as her bright and approachable demeanor, would have had most people writing her off as a pushover, but Shiro - and, in fact, the entire Lion Guard Fencing Team, new members and old - knew better. She’d led the team by herself her sophomore year and half of her junior year, only offering the role of co-captain to Shiro to ease her own burden as she prepared for her post-graduation plans of law school. And while Hira may have had attitude to spare, even she knew better than to tangle directly with Allura.

“You know, Shiro,” she commented. “I think we should keep at it with the footwork. I still see some knees that aren’t bent enough.”

“Oh come on!” Lance Morales Espinosa groaned from his spot at the end of the front row.

“I agree. Let’s run those drills again, and this time, I want to see those knees bent!”

The collective groan was even louder this time, but all Shiro had to do was raise an eyebrow and everyone returned to their original starting lines in the middle of the gym. Several fencers gave Hira and her friends nasty looks as they reset their positions, ready for Shiro to lead them through footwork drills again.

By the time he finally let them go get water and take a breather, even some of the most seasoned fencers had broken a sweat, and poor Hunk Garrett looked ready to keel over. Shiro gave him a firm thump on the back and made sure to comment on how well he’d kept up with the drills, though, which brought a smile to Hunk’s red, sweaty face.

“You’re an evil bastard, you know that, right?” Lance panted as Shiro joined them at the side of the gym, where backpacks and gear bags had been strewn about. Lance was half-in, half-out of his gear, jacket on but unzipped, mask by his side, water bottle already half emptied.

“It’s stamina building. You’ll thank me at tournament,” Shiro told him, gently nudging aside a giant green backpack that looked ready to burst at the seams in order to get to his black-and-silver fencing bag. “Pidge, how can you even carry this thing? It’s gotta weigh half as much as you do!”

Pidge glanced up, in the middle of strapping her chest plate on. She was easily the smallest and youngest member of the team, having graduated high school at age fourteen, but Shiro knew better than to underestimate her. He’d challenged her to a foil bout three practices in last year, and she had wiped the floor with him. She spotted Shiro nudging her backpack aside and hurried over, shooing his hands away.

“Hey hey hey hey hey I’ve got delicate materials in there, paws off!”

“What do you have in there, an entire computer?”

“Maybe.”

“Seriously, how do you not break your back carrying that?” Hunk asked as he joined them on the sidelines.

“Years of practice,” Pidge said, dragging her backpack over to where her lime-green fencing bag gaped open.

“There’s nothing wrong with my stamina - and there are plenty of people on this campus who will vouch for me there,” Lance said with a grin.

Pidge wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”

“Well, perhaps next time, Hira will think about who’s listening before she makes rude comments,” Allura remarked, stepping over a few bags to get to her own. “For the team to succeed, there has to be discipline.”

The new fencers had filed back into the gym, wiping their mouths and sweaty foreheads. Hira and her private-school friends (whose names Shiro couldn’t remember) made a beeline for the sidelines, where they all had their own gear; they immediately started getting dressed, talking with their heads together, shooting the occasional dirty look towards Shiro and Allura. So far, they hadn’t exactly made an effort to be part of the team. Because they had previous experience, neither Shiro or Allura could really force them to have to follow along in starter drills with the other new fencers - and Shiro didn’t think that was entirely fair to them, because they’d already put in the time to learn all the basics. But for three practices, they hadn’t done much more than keep to the far side of the gym with the other experienced fencers and make what Shiro assumed were snide comments about the newer fencers, or his and Allura’s leadership style.

It was a disappointment, to be sure. But Shiro knew he had to focus on giving the new fencers the best instruction he could.

He zipped himself into his jacket and made his way to the center of the gym while Allura finished gearing up. The door to the adjacent storage room opened, and a middle-aged man with a mane of bright orange hair and an impressive mustache to match stuck his head out. Coran Wimbleton-Smythe was the team’s head coach, a professor in the History and Antiquities department, alongside Allura’s father, Alfor Lyon. He had been a stark contrast to the coach of Garrison University’s fencing team, an ex-Marine by the name of Iverson; where Iverson was all hard edges and unforgiving practices, Coran was more fatherly, almost gentle in his approach. Shiro wasn’t sure he’d liked it at first, but the man had grown on him. And it really was hard to dislike Coran. 

“Are we ready to gear these newbies up?” he called brightly.

“Hmmm.” Shiro looked over the crowd of new fencers, all of whom had perked up at the mention of “gear.” So far, the most they’d gotten was a glove to hit each other with to practice keeping distance. “We might be ready to start trying foil…”

“Please, dear God, Shiro, please give them a foil,” Pidge begged. “Hunk and I are tired of fencing each other and Lance sucks ass on foil.”

“I do not!”

“He also refuses to touch a foil unless I try to get him a date with that girl in my Japanese Calligraphy class that he likes.”

“Pidge shut up!”

“All right, all right,” Shiro said. “Coran, bring out the foils. Newbies, go find a jacket that fits you and a glove for your dominant hand. You’re getting blades today.”

The new fencers cheered, heading for the wall adjacent to the storage room door, where Coran had dragged out two large plastic tubs full of loaner jackets, as well as another large tub of loaner masks and a bag entirely filled with foils. As they dug through the gear and squabbled for jackets that fit right, the gym door opened, then closed. This wasn’t unusual - people tried to invade the gym during practice all the time, hoping to use the basketball hoops in the gym even though team schedules were clearly posted throughout the gymnasium building. Shiro sighed, turning to face their intruder.

“Sorry, but we have the gym until - ”

And he trailed off. 

Because he was certain he was looking at the most beautiful guy he’d ever seen.

The guy standing at the door was dressed in workout clothes - an old red tee that looked stupid soft, and a pair of thin sweatpants riding dangerously low on his hips. He had a red bag slung across his shoulder, and looked like he had walked into their gym not on accident, but on purpose. Everything about him was sharp lines and hard angles, except for his eyes, which were impossibly large on his face. His black hair was just long enough to be pulled back into a tiny ponytail. 

There was something oddly familiar about his face, and Shiro swore he’d seen this guy before, and not just around on campus. Was he another transfer from Garrison? Had they gone to high school together? Shiro couldn’t quite place him, but he knew that this was not the first time he’d met this guy.

There was a noise from outside, and the boy standing at the door turned his head, as if he was being addressed. As he did, Shiro spotted a scar that carved up the lower half of his face, starting at his jaw and working inward, almost all the way to his nose.

That scar.

He knew that scar.

The memory hit him like a ton of bricks. 

_ The old hickory tree, on the edge of the Kogane property. Keith was already nine but had only just lost his two front teeth, and when he smiled at Shiro, it looked like he had fangs... _

_ The treehouse at the top of the tree was as old as Keith’s dad, and definitely not safe. They’d climbed it anyways. Keith had fallen in love with it. And scared as he was about being so high off the ground, Shiro had, for a brief and shining moment, felt like king of the world... _

_ The floor rotted out under Keith. He dropped ten feet, hit six branches along the way. Broke his right arm in two spots when he tried to break his fall... _

_ Mr. Kogane and Grandpa Shirogane had found them huddled together in the nest of limbs that had broken Keith’s fall. Shiro had been too scared to climb the rest of the way down to get help. Keith needed seventeen stitches from where he’d busted open his cheek, and had worn a red cast like a badge of honor… _

“Shiro?” 

Someone laid their hand on his arm, breaking him out of his reverie. It was Allura, looking up at him in confusion. The newcomer was still standing at the door, watching the newbies take swings at each other and attempt to act like they knew what they were doing. Allura’s blue eyes were full of concern when she looked up at him.

“Shiro, are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

_ He’d lost track of Keith right after his twelfth birthday. Keith had left over a year earlier, after the building fire that had taken his father’s life. Shiro didn’t know where Keith’s mom was. Keith didn’t like talking about his mom. But she wasn’t around, so Keith had been sent to live with a great uncle ten hours away… _

_ He’d sent a birthday card to Keith for his eleventh birthday, with a packet of Pokemon cards in it. He was sure this one would have a holographic card in it, he just felt that lucky energy through the packaging. But his card had come back marked “return to sender.” Grandpa Shirogane had called the number they’d been left, but was told that the great-uncle in question had passed away. No one seemed to know where Keith was.  _

_ He’d waited weeks, months, years, but nothing had ever come - no call, no letter. Keith was somewhere, he knew that, but he didn’t know where. He wondered if Keith ever thought about him, too… _

“I know him.”

“This...this is the fencing club, right?” Keith called from the door with a little wave. Allura frowned at Shiro, then wrapped an arm around his bicep, dragging him over to the door. To where Keith stood. Shiro’s knees suddenly felt oddly jelly-like. 

“Yes, this is! Terribly sorry, we thought you were coming in to try to play basketball during practice.”

“People do that?” Keith asked, arching one eyebrow, and God, that expression was so familiar it made Shiro’s guts throb. “I mean, like, it’s pretty obvious you guys are in the middle of something.”

“That doesn’t stop a lot of people.” They were right in front of him now, and Allura had stopped dragging him along. He stood up straight, trying to look confident, wondering if Keith would say anything…

If Keith even recognized him.

Shiro knew he’d grown up a lot since they were kids. He’d been on the tall side in elementary school, sure, but by the time Keith moved away, the girls in their class had all been sprouting up and making him look short. His hair had been all black growing up, too - the white forelock that now drooped into his face had been a result of the car accident when he was sixteen. The same one that gave him the scar across his nose.

And his arm…

Shiro self-consciously touched his prosthetic. Given what else he’d lost in the car accident, his arm hadn’t seemed like a concern until he’d first tried to brush his hair by himself. Write his name by himself. Tie his shoes by himself. He’d never realized how much he’d taken having two hands for granted, and how easy his life had been being right-handed. He’d had to relearn how to do everything left-handed.

“I mean, I would think twice about interrupting a gym full of people with blades, but I guess some people don’t learn as easily as others.” Keith shrugged, then stuck out his hand. “I’m Keith. I just transferred from Daibazaal University this semester. It...took me this long to get my schedule to work with fencing practice.”

“That’s quite all right! Welcome to the Lion Guard Fencing Club! I’m Allura Lyon, club co-captain.” She shook Keith’s hand, then gently shoved Shiro forward. “And then this is Takashi Shirogane, who is also co-captain.”

Keith froze, hand ready to clasp Shiro’s. Recognition dawned in his purple eyes. 

“Wait...Shiro?” he asked, softly. 

“Yeah,” he said, hesitantly reaching for Keith’s hand. “Yeah, it’s me.”

Shiro expected Keith to just shake his hand. What he didn’t expect was for Keith to literally throw down his bag and throw himself at Shiro, slamming into him hard enough that he nearly fell backwards. Skinny arms wrapped around his midsection, holding him tight.

“Oh my God, Shiro,” Keith murmured into his midsection. “Shiro, I can’t believe it’s you…”

“Yeah.” He slowly wrapped his arms around Keith, as if he was a startled deer that might book it if he wasn’t careful. “Yeah, it’s me. It’s...it’s so good to see you, Keith. I honestly wasn’t sure you’d recognize me.”

Keith gently broke the embrace and stepped back. There was a fondness in his eyes that made Shiro’s heart go soft like ice cream left out too long.

“How could anyone forget you, Shiro?”

“All right, what’s with all the chick-flick crap over here?” Lance stormed over, mask resting on his hip and blue eyes looking Keith up and down as if sizing him up as a meal. 

“You’re such an asshole,” Allura said, shaking her head in disapproval, and Lance at least had the decency to look cowed.

“Shiro’s an old friend of mine,” Keith said. “We were next-door neighbors growing up. I...this was the last place I was expecting to find you.”

“Well, this was definitely the last place I was expecting to find you,” Shiro said.

“Keith, this is Lance, one of our sabre fencers,” Allura said. “Lance, this is Keith. He just transferred in from Daibazaal University.”

Lance, who had been going for a handshake, jumped back as if he’d been electrocuted. He eyed Keith’s outstretched hand with disgust.

“Daibazaal University?!” 

The school was one of Altea’s biggest rivals - even bigger than Garrison University, Shiro’s original alma mater. Most of the rivalry was focused on their two football teams, and it was the stuff of legends, but even in the collegiate fencing circles, Altea had been gunning for a win against Daibazaal for years, but when it came to the annual intercollegiate fencing tournament, Daibazaal University went home with first place every year without fail.

“Yeah. Is that...a problem?” Keith asked, brows furrowing.

Lance opened his mouth to say something, but Allura beat him to it, all smiles and good graces. “Absolutely not! We’re glad you’ve come to Altea University, and that you’ve come to find us!”

“Did you fence at Daibazaal?” Shiro asked.

“Oh yeah. I joined the team as soon as I saw their booth at the club carnival.”

“Well,” Allura said, glancing over her shoulder. Pidge and Hunk had corralled the new fencers, and Pidge was leading them in simple thrusts with the foils while Hunk darted about correcting stances and grips, “it looks as if Pidge and Hunk have the foil instruction under control. You could join the rest of us in free-bouting. Do you have a blade preference?”

“Well, I’ve dabbled in all three…” Keith began.

On Allura’s other side, Lance’s entire body went tense. Lance was one of their stronger sabre fencers, second only to Allura...and Shiro knew that Lance would take Keith fencing sabre as nothing short of an insult. He wanted to grab Lance by the shoulders and shake a little sense into him, because he could already tell that Lance was determined to start some sort of nonsense between himself and Keith, but he got the impression that shaking Lance by his shoulders in front of the rest of the club would set a bad impression. 

“But epee is my favorite,” Keith finished. Lance let go of the breath he’d been holding, and Shiro relaxed just a bit.

“Oh, well, how fortunate. Shiro’s our best epeeist,” Allura said with a knowing smile in Shiro’s direction. “How about we put your skills to the test against his...so long as he doesn’t mind, of course?”

“Not at all,” Shiro said. “Let me go get my blade and my equipment.”

“I’ve got to put my gear on,” Keith said, hitching his bag a little higher on his shoulder.

“I’ll go grab the buzz boxes from the equipment,” Allura said. “I can judge, too.”

“You don’t mind?” Shiro asked.

“Are you kidding?” Her grin was practically feral. “I want to see if you’ve finally met your match.”

“Your faith in me is astounding,” Shiro dead-panned, and Allura laughed, sauntering off to the piles of equipment against the back wall of the gym. Keith had found a place to drop his fencing bag, and was shaking out a well-worn jacket. Shiro grabbed his blade, a body cord, and a bottle of water from his bag, then made for the far end of the gym. There was a spot left open next to Hira and one of her friends, who were trying to skewer each other with foils while a third friend egged them on. Shiro set his belongings down at one end of their imagined strip and waited.

Keith and Allura arrived within seconds of each other, the former bearing his blade and a water bottle covered in stickers, the latter with two buzz boxes. She gave each of them a buzz box, helping them clip the boxes to the backs of their jackets, then stood at the middle of their imagined strip. By now, Hira and her ensemble had stopped to watch, and Lance had sauntered over, too. Even the new fencers were taking peeks over to watch, much to Pidge’s annoyance.

“All right, first to five?” Allura asked.

Shiro nodded. “Works for me.”

“Me too,” Keith agreed. 

“Then fencers, salute, mask, en garde,” Allura instructed, and Keith and Shiro saluted each other before donning their masks. Shiro shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, bouncing slightly in anticipation of the start of the match.

“Fencers ready?” Allura brought her hands together. “Fence!”

Keith advanced. Shiro retreated, bouncing slightly. Keith was aggressive right from the gate - good, it would make things interesting. And it was a good tactic against him, Shiro had to admit - he was six inches taller than Keith and had shoulders twice as broad. It made no sense to advance on him when he was being advanced on - that was just a good way to end up stabbing himself and getting Keith a point. He could only hope that maybe Keith would come close enough if he backed off…

Keith lashed out, quick and deliberate. Shiro heard the distinct, muffled clink of a blade hitting the back of his metal prosthetic, and the beep of the score box.

“Halt! Attack from the left lands. Score is 1 - 0, Keith.” 

Keith retreated to the en garde line. Shiro shuffled dumbly back to his, feeling more than a little stupid. He’d just let Keith score a touch without even so much as an attempt to parry. 

“Fencers ready? Fence!”

Keith lunged forward again. This time, Shiro followed suit. He knew it was a reckless move, but he had to at least put up some kind of fight.

But as soon as he advanced, Keith retreated. He advanced again, only for Keith to take another step back, tense like a cat ready to pounce on a hapless mouse. Keith flicked his blade up, beating it lightly against Shiro’s. Shiro lunged, putting as much stretch into it as he could. Keith was just barely out of reach, and took another step back as soon as Shiro lunged. 

And so it continued. Shiro would advance, only for Keith to retreat. But just when he’d thought he might be able to run Keith off the strip and get a point by the sheer luck of Keith stepping out of bounds, Keith would come back with a few quick advances, batting his sword against Shiro’s, lashing out with the occasional quick strike, like that of an attacking snake. It had been nearly two minutes on the strip, and neither of them had been able to score a point.

Finally, Shiro thought he had an opening, brought on by Keith’s high parry that left his entire side open. Shiro fleched him, intent on getting him before he could bring his arm back down and protect his exposed side. Two feet. One foot. Six inches. Three inches…

Keith bound Shiro’s blade, twisting it to the side. Shiro stumbled along with his blade, and his right shoulder collided with Keith’s right.

“Halt!” Allura called. “Corps à corps initiated from the right.”

Shiro and Keith carefully shook their blades apart - he’d seen Lance break a blade from ding the exact same thing Keith had just done to him, and Allura had been fit to be tied. Corps a corps wasn’t, technically, illegal in epee - unlike sabre and foil, in which it was very much so illegal and also very much so grounds for a yellow card - and collisions happened all the time during practices, but Shiro knew that it was a move he could very well get carded for at a tournament. 

_ Should have been more careful _ , he thought. 

“It was an accident,” Keith stated, lifting his mask up. “He wasn’t doing it intentionally.”

“I know,” Allura said. “Just one of those things we have to be careful about. Judges can and will card for it.” She moved to stand next to them, holding up a hand. “En garde is here. Fencers ready? Fence!”

Shiro was fast. But Keith was faster. Keith jabbed the point of his epee into Shiro’s arm, and the score box buzzed.

“Halt! Attack from the left arrives. Score is 2 - 0, Keith.” Another return to the en garde line. “Fencers ready? Fence!”

Keith went immediately on the offensive again, and Shiro batted him back as best as he could - but Keith was good. Really good. Advance. Retreat. Lunge and redouble, hard. Keith matched him move for move, jumping back to avoid Shiro’s deep lunges, parrying his blade to the side with ease. He managed to land a touch on Keith, but only at the expense of Keith also scoring at the same time, taking their score to 3 - 1. They doubled again on the next touch, bringing the score to 4 - 2. By now, the new fencers had completely abandoned Pidge and Hunk’s foil lessons, and a whole crowd had gathered to watch them.

“Bout pout!” Allura declared. “Score is 4 - 2, Keith. Fencers ready?”

Shiro nodded. Sweat was dripping down into his eyes, and his bangs had plastered themselves down the bridge of his nose, but he took a deep breath, forcing all of that into the background. He couldn’t lose focus now.

“Fence!”

Shiro lurched into motion; before Keith could advance more than two steps across the en garde line, Shiro was there. He knew that if Iverson - Garrison University’s hardass head coach - could see him, so close to Keith, he would have run out in the middle of the bout to tape both their feet to the floor. But Allura didn’t have the same qualms about infighting, and, in fact, was watching the match with wide eyes, head swiveling to follow their every move.

Keith may have been caught off-guard by Shiro’s aggressive offense, but he didn’t falter. He leapt back to avoid Shiro’s blade, lunged in so deep that his back knee almost touched the ground in an attempt to get a touch. Shiro beat his blade and bound it, feinted left and right with his parries, using every trick he’d ever learned in an attempt to keep Keith from scoring that last, critical touch on him. And even though his prosthetic arm was hot and heavy under his jacket, even though his shoulder ached and his thighs were trembling and his blade felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, beneath his mask, Shiro couldn’t help but smile.

It was the most fun he’d had in a match in a long time.

Keith came in with a thrust. Shiro moved to parry it, taking a step out of Keith’s reach...but then Keith lunged low, impossibly low, to the point where Shiro thought his knee was actually touching the floor. An unmistakable buzz filled the air.

Shiro looked down and found that the tip of Keith’s blade was sunk into the tip of his shoe.

“Halt!” Allura called out, looking about as dumbfounded as Shiro felt. “Attack from the left arrives! Final score is 5 - 2, Keith!”

Shiro peeled off his mask, shoving his sweaty bangs out of his face and watching as Keith effortlessly made his way back upright. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed as hell at that maneuver, because most fencers that tried to do what Keith had just done either ended up falling over or they touched the floor and the bout had to be stopped because of it. 

“Fencers salute and shake hands,” Allura instructed.

Shiro raised his blade and saluted Keith. Keith pulled his mask off, revealing a red face shining with sweat, tendrils of black hair plastered to his cheeks and neck. He grinned, saluting Shiro in return, then offered his ungloved left hand. Shiro hesitated for a moment - his off hand was his prosthetic arm, something he did not have the last time Keith had seen him. The older fencers at Altea were used to it, and so were most of the Garrison fencers, but it always threw people for a loop at other tournaments they went to. What would Keith make of it?

Keith’s your friend, he thought. No matter how long it’s been, he’s still your friend. And if he’s still the same Keith he once was, he’s not going to give a flying fuck about the fact that your arm is made of metal and plastic.

And so Shiro gave Keith his off hand to shake, prosthetic on flesh. Keith didn’t even flinch.

“That was incredible,” Shiro said. “That last touch...how did you even - ?”

“You don’t even want to know how much time I spent trying to perfect that,” Keith said with a smirk. “Or how many pairs of pants I split in the process.”

The new fencers were applauding, eyes wide with excitement. Pidge and Hunk were nodding in approval, and Allura looked almost as starstruck as the new fencers. Even Lance looked impressed.

On their other side, Hira muttered something, and one of her friends snorted loudly. All three of them cut their eyes over to Shiro, nasty smirks on their face. Shiro knew how it must have looked, the fact that he’d just gotten his ass handed to him by Keith, who had literally just walked into the gym from out of nowhere. And he didn’t care, because Keith had won their bout fair and square. But there was something about the smirks on the faces of Hira and her two friends that made Shiro unconsciously grip his epee just a little tighter. He was tempted to have them take a few laps around the gym, see if it jogged their memory on how an audience should act when watching a fencing match.

But before he could open his mouth, Keith turned to face the three of them, blade at his side but a wicked smirk on his face. 

“All right, who’s up next?”


	2. Because We Are Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is suspicious, Keith is defensive, and Shiro just wants a good night's sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a somewhat graphic description of a car accident and for a PTSD flashback in this chapter. If you want to avoid it, just skip the last section of the chapter, where the italicized text starts. 
> 
> Take care of yourselves, babes <3

“I don’t know if I like that Keith guy.”

Shiro sighed as Lance dropped into an empty seat between him and Allura. As was their usual ritual following practice, the fencers had shuffled to the dining hall en masse for dinner. Shiro had asked Keith if he was interested in joining, but Keith gently turned him down. 

The two tables they have pushed together were only meant to seat four people each, but more than a dozen fencers were now crowded around, half of them precariously balancing their plates in their laps. Lance dropped a plate piled high with questionable dining-hall Chinese food down, nearly dropping it right in Shiro’s dinner. As it was, his fork clattered to the floor.

“Sorry, Shiro,” he apologized.

“Lance, please tell me you’re not going to start some silly rivalry or something,” Allura sighed.

“It’s not silly!” Lance said. “I mean...the guy seems kind of cocky. Right?”

Down at the far end of the table, Hira and her two friends nodded and agreed loudly. After beating Shiro, he’d soundly taken out Hira and her two friends, too. Hira hadn’t even landed a single touch on Keith.

It has been more than a little satisfying for Shiro to watch. 

“Funny,” Shiro said lightly, “some people might say the same thing about you.”

There was a loud clattering noise as Lance dropped his fork onto his plate, sputtering. Pidge snickered.

“Man, I haven’t seen you this worked up since Nyma Wallace turned you down for a date,” she said.

Lance turned bright red. “Shut up, Pidge!”

“First of all, he’s not cocky,” Shiro said. “Second of all, I think that he has a right to be a bit cocky. You did see him win four bouts in a row, right? I could barely get a hit on him.”

“And that lunge of his is pretty impressive,” Allura added. “I’ve never seen a fencer able to lunge so deeply without immediately falling to the floor.”

Lance’s entire face went red. It was hardly a secret that Lance had an insane crush on Allura; Shiro realized it about two days into his time as a fencer with the team. Of course, half the club thought him and Allura were hooking up; he’d caught several of their newbies last year watching them as if they were waiting for a kiss to happen - a kiss that never would happen. Not that Shiro didn’t respect the hell out of Allura, because he absolutely did. It was just that he had absolutely no interest in women, period.

“Oh, so he’s some kind of fencing Jesus now?” Lance asked, jabbing his fork into his noodles with an unnecessary amount of force.

“No, I’m just saying that he’s very skilled,” Allura said, raising one delicate white eyebrow. “What’s gotten into you, Lance?”

Hunk and Pidge started snickering all over again. If looks could have killed, they both would have been dead and buried from the look that Lance gave them. 

“Look, I’m just not sure about trusting this guy, okay?” Lance said. “He’s from Daibazaal University.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t go to Daibazaal University anymore, smart one,” Pidge told him with a mouth half-full of pizza. “He goes here. He said he transferred here. If you actually listened when he talked, you’d have known that.”

“Yeah, but how do we know he’s not pulling, like, some double-crossing secret agent spy shit and is passing along notes about our fencing team to Daibazaal’s team? They’ve already beaten us at states four years in a row, and if he’s passing them information, we don’t have a prayer!”

“Lance, I’m pretty sure Keith doesn’t have an ulterior motive for joining the fencing team,” Shiro said. “I’m pretty sure he just wants to fence.”

“Yeah, take your tinfoil hat off and listen to our fearless leader, Lance,” Pidge said. “Keith isn’t some kind of spy for Daibazaal, he’s just a transfer student who wants to fence.”

Lance sank back into his chair, sulking. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you guys.”

* * *

Two days later, Shiro found himself dragging ass as he left his Quantum Mechanics class, cursing himself for a fool for double-majoring in Physics and Computer Science. He’d been up for almost two days straight, trying to finish a lab for Quantum Mechanics and also wrap up a project for his stupid gen ed class that he’d left late, and all he wanted to do was to fall into bed and sleep until Winter Break - not that he could, because he had more homework to do, of course…

“Shiro?”

He stopped. Keith was sitting outside of the student center, wearing black jeans despite the September heat. He had his legs up on the table he was sitting at, a large sketchbook balanced in his lap and an earbud dangling out of one ear. He blinked a few times, his sleep-deprived brain needing an extra minute to process that yes, Keith had spoken to him, and yes, after so many years of not having his oldest friend in his life, Keith was there again. 

“Oh, uh...hey! Sorry, I...kinda spaced out there for a minute.” Shiro made his way to Keith’s table. “I haven’t really gotten a lot of sleep the past two days.”

“I hope you were on your way to take a nap, then,” Keith said, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, um...no. Not really. Too much homework to do.”

“Here.” Keith plucked a to-go cup of coffee off the table and passed it over to Shiro. “Sounds like you need this more than I do.”

“I couldn’t take it, it’s your coffee.”

“Yeah, but I’m also the one who got eight full hours of sleep last night. I insist. I can always get another.”

Not really able to argue, Shiro dumbly accepted the coffee cup, wrapping his hands around it to savor the warmth coming through the cup. He didn’t care that it was September, and most people would think it was too hot for coffee, because as far as he was concerned, there was never a bad time for coffee. 

“Well...thank you,” he said.

Keith made a noise, scrunching up his nose as he carefully erased part of his drawing. Shiro took a sip of the coffee and nearly spit it across the table almost immediately. The coffee was incredibly sweet and heavily doctored. It took everything he had in him to swallow the mouthful of overly-sweet, milky fluid.

“Holy shit, Keith, how much sugar did you put into this thing?!”

Keith glanced up. “It’s not sugar, it’s that stevia stuff.”

“Yeah, but that’s like, four times sweeter than sugar!”

“Well, some of us aren’t so keen on the whole ‘coffee as black as our soul’ deal,” Keith argued, shaking his head. “I tried drinking it black. Not only was it the single nastiest thing I have ever tasted, but it gave me heartburn  _ and _ a serious case of the jitters.”

“Well, much as I appreciate the gesture of you offering me your coffee, I’m going to have to pass.” Shiro set the cup back down in front of Keith, glancing at the large sketchbook still perched in his lap. “Do you mind if I ask what you’re working on?”

“Just some sketches for a Still Life class.” Keith tapped the end of his pencil against his sketchbook, studying Shiro for a moment. “Do you...mind if I draw you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. I wanted to get a human sketch in, but it’s kinda weird just going up to random people and asking to draw them, as you can imagine. But now that you’re here, I’ve got a perfect model.” He paused, frowning and shoving the pencil behind his ear. “That is, if I’m not keeping you from anything.”

Shiro shook his head. “No, you’re fine.”

“You’re sure.”

“The only thing that’s waiting for me if homework, and it can wait a little longer.” Shiro leaned back in the chair. “Is there anything in particular you need me to do?”

“Not really?” Keith said. “Just...kinda sit there. You don’t even really need to pose.”

“Just don’t fall asleep?” Shiro chuckled weakly.

“Well, I mean, I can still draw you if you’re asleep,” Keith said, “but it is kind of creepy, so yeah, I’d prefer if you stayed awake.”

He flipped to a clean page in his sketchbook, then plucked the pencil from behind his ear, setting it to the paper. The only noise between them was the skritching of Keith’s pencil against the paper, and the occasional quiet hmm he made as he looked up to study Shiro’s features.

“The scar is new,” he said, after about ten minutes of silence.

Shiro self-consciously touched the bridge of his nose. “Heh. Yeah, I...didn’t have that when we were in elementary school.”

“Has it...really been that long?” Keith asked. 

“Yeah. I was eleven when you...the last time I saw you,” Shiro said, careful to avoid the words of what actually happened -  _ when your dad died, when you went to live with your great-uncle, when you left and I stopped hearing from you. _ “So yeah, it’s...been a really long time.”

“I guess I kinda stopped keeping track of the years for a while. It didn’t make any difference - new year, same bullshit as before.”

“Yeah?”

Keith’s expression shuttered. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

Shiro nodded. “I get it.”

They fell back into silence again - but it was the comfortable silence of an old friendship, just like it had been when they were little. There were times where Shiro would go over to Keith’s house and they would sit for hours, playing Gameboys or reading books or watching movies, and wouldn’t say a word, and they’d still have a great time. Words weren’t needed back then.

At the very least, one thing hadn’t changed.

“So...what brought you to Altea?” Shiro asked.

“Daibazaal’s a great school, don’t get me wrong,” Keith said. “But...I don’t know, the school’s really STEM-focused now; they’re funneling a lot of money into engineering and math and technology, and the humanities departments are suffering for it. They actually moved the education college into a building that should be condemned, given the state it’s in.” He looked up, nose wrinkled in mild disgust. “Can you imagine? The people who are going to be teaching our future presidents, astronauts, and doctors, having to pack up and move to a hundred-year-old building with black mold, just because the computer science department got greedy and wanted the whole building?”

“I mean...I’m a physics and computer science double major, so I might not be the best person to ask about this.”

“Physics and computer science?” Keith’s eyes bugged. “Shiro, why do you hate yourself so much?”

“Because I still want to go to the stars one day, just like I did when I was eleven.” He sighed. “But unlike when I was eleven, I now realize exactly how much math it takes to get to the stars.”

_ Among other things… _

Shiro’s dreams of going to the stars were all but dead now, between the prosthetic arm - which was experimental to begin with, and even though Dr. Samuel Holt was an engineering genius, a trait he’d passed on both of his children, there were too many risk factors in regards to subjecting the arm to the harshness of space - and the chronic illness that had decided to show up unannounced and unwanted halfway through his sophomore year of college. But that didn’t mean he had to give up everything related to his dreams completely. There was still plenty of things he could do for the United States’ space program and still keep both feet on the ground. 

“Well, speaking as someone who barely passed Algebra I,” Keith said, “I just wanted to go somewhere where art still felt important, you know? Like...I don’t want to do math, or science, or computers, or anything, I just want to draw. That was the one thing that kept me hanging on by a thread for years, and I just...want to keep doing it.” 

He looked up from his sketchbook, which now seemed less like a prop to Shiro and more like a shield - because he had never seen Keith look more vulnerable than he did in that moment, not even standing next to his father’s casket in a suit that was too big for his skinny little frame. 

“Does that make me sound stupid?”

“No,” Shiro said, shaking his head. “It makes you sound human.”

Keith raised an eyebrow.

“Look, yeah, everyone wants to go on and on about how important math and science and all that is, and yeah, I totally bought into it, which is why I’m double-majoring and hating my life just a little. But...you wanna know why I did it?”

Keith nodded.

“I did it for that little Japanese kid who used to have glow-in-the-dark stars plastered on his ceiling, and would sneak out into the backyard after his parents went to bed to look at the night sky,” Shiro said with a soft little smile. “I did it because I loved looking at the stars.”

Keith still didn’t seem terribly convinced. Shiro leaned back in his chair slightly.

“You know, a philosopher once asked ‘do we gaze at the stars because we’re human, or are we human because we gaze at the stars?’”

“Pointless, really,” Keith chimed in, recognition dawning in his eyes. “Do the stars gaze back, now that’s a question! Shiro, you...you saw  _ Stardust? _ ”

“Of course,” Shiro said. “I knew you’d recognize that quote.”

“Of course I would, I read every Neil Gaiman book I could get my hands on when I was in high school.”

“Art’s still important,” Shiro said. “Even if other people don’t think it is.”

“That was...actually kind of inspiring,” Keith said.

“No need to sound so surprised. I’d like to think I give good advice occasionally.”

“You know, if I’d had someone like you when I was a teen, maybe I wouldn’t have been such a colossal fuck-up.”

Shiro’s stomach sank, chest hurting like Keith had decked him. “Keith, I…”

“Hey. No. Don’t apologize.” Keith shook his head. “What happened isn’t your fault. Shit was just...out of control for both of us. But you know what? It looks like we get a second chance to be friends again.”

“Yeah,” Shiro said, nodding slowly. “Yeah, you’re right. We do.”

Keith grinned, then leaned back over his sketchbook. “Now hold still. I’ve got to finish this sketch.”

* * *

_ Shiro knew exactly how this was going to end. _

_ It always ended the same way, with a cacophony of metal crushing and a flash of white-hot pain across his right arm, but he was powerless to stop it. _

_ He was in the driver’s seat, two-handing the steering wheel like he was trying to impress a driving instructor. Ryou was messing with the radio again, changing Shiro’s top 40 pop hits to something loud and aggressive - music to rip guts out to, their dad had called it with a disapproving shake of his head. But Ryouta Shirogane was sixteen and invincible, personality as loud and bright as the large stud through his eyebrow.  _

_ Ryou had, once again, changed the radio, right in the middle of Shiro’s favorite song - “Hey Soul Sister” by Train - and Rammstein was blaring through the stereo, while teasing Shiro for listening to “girly” music. Shiro took his right arm off the steering wheel - his fatal mistake, he told himself, all these years later - to loop it around Ryou’s neck and smack him on the shaved-close side of his head. _

_ Shiro had the green light. But the truck coming from the east on that almost-desolate four-way intersection in Southern California didn’t, and Shiro’s little Honda was no match for two-and-a-half-ton pickup truck going sixty miles an hour. The truck plowed into the passenger side of the car, Ryou’s side of the car - and in the worst possible case of irony, it did so while the radio was blasting “Feuer Frei,” Till Lindemann screaming “Bang! Bang!” _

_ And bang bang the truck did, bringing Shiro’s car to a stop while also pushing it all the way across the intersection and into what would have been oncoming traffic, had there been any other traffic coming on. The noise of metal grinding on metal was deafening in the sudden silence; the impact of the truck silenced the stereo by crushing it. Glass shattered. Metal bent and crumpled. The truck was, impossibly, on top of the car, the roof crumpling inward, the entire right side of the car smashed and scattered across the intersection. White-hot pain lashed Shiro’s right arm, and the airbag exploded in his face. Something in his chest cracked.  _

_ There was blood on the windshield. Blood on the passenger’s side airbag. _

_ Ryou’s airbag. _

_ “Ryou...Ryou…” _

Shiro sat bolt upright, feeling like someone had put a vise around his chest and was steadily tightening it. The fingers of his prosthetic hand curled into the tank top he was wearing, as if this would stop the vise threatening to crush him. His heart was hammering in his ears. 

It had been almost eight years but the dream still came. Shiro knew the ending of it like an old song he couldn’t get out of his head: He was in a coma for three weeks at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Severe concussion, three broken ribs and a broken collarbone, broken nose, and several lacerations from where the windshield had shattered. The most damage was his right arm, however - the arm that had been looped around Ryou’s neck, messing with him. In the crash, Ryou’s seat and door had been crumpled, Shiro’s arm trapped there, elbow shattered beyond repair, nerves crushed. The damage had been too great to repair, so the only course of action had been to amputate his arm, just above his elbow.

But all of that paled in comparison to what else he lost in the crash.

The truck had hit Ryou’s side. Pinned him between twisted bits of metal. His seat had crumpled like a soda can, him in it, neck snapped from the force of the collision. He was dead before the paramedics even arrived at the scene. His funeral had taken place while Shiro was still in a coma. 

_ Ryou...Ryou… _

Everyone had said it wasn’t his fault - the doctors, his parents, the therapist they sent to meet with him when they’d backed down his morphine enough for him to be coherent. There was no possible way for him to know the driver of the pickup truck was drunk, that he would drive through the stoplight and plow into Shiro’s car. 

_ Ryou...Ryou… _

Shiro curled up onto his side, helpless to the tears that burned and stung his eyes, rolled down his cheeks. Ryou should have been here with him - should have graduated high school with him, gone to college, lived his dreams as Shiro had tried to live his own. Would Ryou have gone to college? He’d dreamed of being a tattoo artist when they were sixteen, even though their parents were very traditional and their dad had shit a brick at the idea of Ryou doing tattoos - because only thugs and Yakuza members got tattoos - but maybe his dream would have changed. Or stayed the same. 

But none of that mattered now. Ryou was gone, and Shiro hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye.

He pressed his pillow to his chest, wrapping his arms around it. On his worst nights - like tonight - it seemed like the very room was closing in around him, like he was still trapped in the crushed remains of his Honda, full of the smell of blood and gasoline, wondering if the car would explode and kill them all, if the paramedics would come get him and Ryou out before that happened, if the paramedics would even find them on the desolate stretch of road they were on, miles outside of the small town they lived in.

He rolled over again, but there was Ryou, blood streaming down his face from a gash at his temple, head lolling impossibly far to one side, eyes wide but blank as they stared at Shiro.

He jolted out of bed, pillow flopping onto the ground. In the darkness, he stumbled back-first into his wardrobe, pain lashing up and down his spine, and he nearly broke his neck tripping on his backpack. After a few minutes of fumbling around in the darkness of his tiny dorm room, his fingers, scrambling desperately over the wall, found the light switch and he flipped it on, grateful for the fact that he’d forked over the extra money for a single room. 

His dead twin brother was not, in fact, waiting for him in his bed, but that didn’t make Shiro feel any better. The room was still closing in around him, blood pounding through his ears and hands shaking as he grabbed for a pair of sweatpants that were draped over the back of his desk chair. He wiggled his way into them, then stuffed his feet into his shoes and grabbed for the lightweight jacket hanging from the hook on the back of his door. The burning red numbers of his alarm clock told him it was 3 AM; the campus would be clear, except for a few security guards, who might question a lone student jogging down the main road in the middle of the night.

But Shiro knew he wasn’t going to be getting any more sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like this story? Follow me on [Tumblr](https://celticaurora.tumblr.com) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/celticaurora) for...things. Not always story-related, but things.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang with me on [Tumblr](celticaurora.tumblr.com) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/celticaurora)


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